New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?

Monday, June 12, 2017

As NAC told you a month ago, public housing neophyte David Duggins will be the interim director of NAHA -- and at Bob Lane's pay grade.

How y'all feeling, Democrats?

Your beloved leader just did another one of those things that you'd be condemning -- nay, resisting -- if it had originated with Donald Trump. But hey, it's like Jeff Gahan once said: "Nobody reads the paper."

Especially Gahan, though gazing lovingly upon his own photo is another shtick entirely.

Gahan's public housing putsch steamrolled forward on Monday evening as the mayor's handpicked NAHA board of bobbleheaded brown-nosing flatterers selected the completely inexperienced David Duggins to serve as interim public housing dismantler.

Not only that, the double-dipping economic dishevelment director Duggins was awarded the same salary and benefits as Bob Lane, recently decapitated at Gahan's command. If memory serves, Lane held the job for 15 years.

But you see, as with Trump's appointees, Duggins needn't know anything at all. He's there to tear down public housing, not build it back, with the job performance bar separated from the dusty ground by an expanse equal to a flea's nostril hair. Dugout can clear it with ease so long as the bulldozers don't run out of petrol.

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How will we know that downtown revitalization is succeeding?

Downtown businessmen don't have to be told that racism is unacceptable.

Downtown coffee shops have enough business to be open evenings and weekends.